Some Advice Wanted for New 90 Gallon Tank

[KellyGee]

Hey guys, happy Saturday!

So we've just set up this 90 gallon tank in the last couple of weeks. It has 90lb of dry rock, and 80lb of live sand. We put in 2 baby clownfish two days ago (you can see them in the back right corner of the tank in this pic) and 4 dwarf hermit crabs to get the uneaten food off the substrate. We are planning on adding coral and making this a reef tank! However - it looks really barren and we're trying to figure out what order/what fish and quantities/what timeline to put them in. Any ideas guys? I'll include my dream stock list as well!

- royal gramma
- Banggai (or pajama, not decided yet) cardinalfish
- 6 line wrasse
- yellow tang
- goby/pistol shrimp combo
- dottyback
- foxface rabbitfish
- mandarin dragonet (a pipe dream)
- sand sifting starfish
- Valentini puffer (aware of their tendencies to gnaw on coral)
- filefish (would wait until aiptasia outbreak for introduction)
- angler (desperately want)
- flareback angelfish

 

[blaxsun]

Other than a few of those fish being “reef safe with caution” and “not reef safe” you mean? I would probably reconsider the puffer (advised for fish-only, as it will probably eat your inverts), angler (as it will eat all your small fish) and rabbitfish (as it will outgrow your tank eventually and may nip at your corals).

 

[KellyGee]

Thanks for the advice!

 

[olonmv]

It’ll take time before it starts to come together be patient. If I may drop a couple of cents…… before stocking it up with coral, make sure that your glass cleaner has enough space to clean between the rock and glass. I made the mistake and I ended up having to move rock around after adding coral.

 

[KellyGee]

It’ll take time before it starts to come together be patient. If I may drop a couple of cents…… before stocking it up with coral, make sure that your glass cleaner has enough space to clean between the rock and glass. I made the mistake and I ended up having to move rock around after adding coral.

Yep, been doing that shuffle for a little bit now… still need to get the last couple of pieces moved.

 

[olonmv]

Yep, been doing that shuffle for a little bit now… still need to get the last couple of pieces moved.

Sweet! I started with dry rock as well and it was drab for a while. It’ll for sure start looking like a reef soon enough! I kinda enjoyed the slow approach and it made it a little easier to understand the cycle of which things take place. Right now is a good time to become familiar with dosing and keeping parameters stable (assuming your fresh in the hobby). There’s a ton to learn and google and R2R are places you’re gonna find yourself constantly on. Stable parameters are suuuuuuper important in reef keeping.